Month: August 2019

Today is the Memorial of the Passion of St. John the Baptist. The Gospel recounts the story of this event, and in it, there are two men, King Herod, and John the Baptist, one of them imprisoned and the other truly free.

Whenever I hear this story, I end up having some sympathy for Herod. He doesn’t seem to want to kill John because something about the prophet struck at his heart. When Herod “heard him speak, he was very much perplexed, yet he liked to listen to him.” Herod wasn’t free to do what he truly wanted. He was enslaved by his sinfulness, by his choice to marry his brother’s wife, by the opinions of his party guests, and by the fear of losing his reputation. Even though it was John who was sitting behind bars, it was Herod who was imprisoned.

St. Paul sums up this slavery to sin in Romans where he says, “For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if [I] do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me” (Romans 7:19-20).

John the Baptist, on the other hand, was radically free. His whole life was marked by a desire to do God’s will, no matter the cost. He doesn’t appear in the Gospels like a man terribly concerned with the opinions of others or his social status. He cooperated with the Lord to such an extent that he was able to do what he truly wanted, even when he knew that would cost him his life.

This radical freedom possessed by John is also freely available to us. The Catechism says that grace frees men from our enslavement to sin and heals our wounds (Catechism 1990) and that “the more docile we are to the promptings of grace, the more we grow in inner freedom and confidence during trials, such as those we face in the pressures and constraints of the outer world” (Catechism 1742).

Grace helps us recognize our true identity as sons and daughters of the Father. From that truth about ourselves, we understand that we don’t have to earn our dignity and value from the opinions of others; instead, we are immeasurably valuable just because of who we are as children of God. And if we are God’s children then, just like the prodigal son, we always have access to the Father’s mercy and forgiveness when we sin. If we truly believed this about ourselves, like in the depths of our heart believed this, then we would no longer be enslaved by the fear of what others think or of losing our reputation. If we truly believed this, we would be able to do what we genuinely want to do.

So I invite you to sit with Jesus for a few minutes and in the quiet ask Him to show you where you are enslaved, to show you what prevents you from doing what you truly want, and ought, to do. And then ask St. John the Baptist, and all the holy martyrs, to pray for you for the grace that makes you truly free.

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My friends, today on the memorial of St Augustine, the Church has given us readings in the Liturgy and in the Office of Readings that focus on the amazing attraction of Jesus on our souls.

St Paul so clearly describes our experience in the First reading. He says that sometimes we are “shaken out of our minds,” “alarmed,” “deceived.” A person in this spiritual space is the one who is fearfully trying to find his or her way to salvation amid the sometimes terrifying realities around them. Paul indicates that the Thessalonians were alarmed at the imminent coming of the Lord. We are alarmed at many things that also strike at that very basic core of fear within the human heart: survival. Take a deep breath. What are you alarmed about? What news upsets your peace of soul? What family matters are overwhelmingly oppressive at this moment? Where do you worry about your or another’s salvation?

Immediately St Paul refocuses our vision: you are called to possess the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what the Gospel calls you to, promises, lays out before you as an infinite horizon toward which you can walk as far as you want, and as quickly as you desire. We are called to a magnificent hope! Promised eternal glory in the Lord Jesus Christ!

I remember assuring some very fearful women who had come into our book center in Metairie, Louisiana to purchase candles in preparation for the imminent three days of darkness prophesied by someone on a television program they had been watching, “Jesus never encouraged us to be afraid of him,” I told them. “He said instead that he was going to prepare a home for us in his Father’s Kingdom and that he would come to take us back there with them.” They exchanged their candles for the Chaplet to the Divine Mercy and left with much peace in their soul.

God our Father has loved us and given us this everlasting encouragement that we might not live in fear any longer, but might have “good hope through his grace,” and experience encouragement and strength so that our lives would flow with every good deed and word.

Certainly, this is a process. It could be that the scribes and Pharisees whom we encounter in the Gospels never had the courage to risk the trust of this adventure in truth. However, Saint Augustine, whom we celebrate this day in the liturgy, did. The reading for the Office of Readings so beautiful describes this journey made by Saint Augustine, and which is documented in his book Confessions of Saint Augustine.

Here we learn from this great convert, the essential ingredients for the spiritual growth Saint Paul calls all Christians to:

Augustine “reflected upon himself.”
He entered under God’s guidance into the inmost depth of his soul. This is a journey that God is inviting each of us to. He himself makes this journey possible. Through his grace he is the helper of our soul.

When Saint Augustine entered within the inmost depth of his soul he discovered with the eye of the soul what was beyond him, beyond his spirit. He saw the immutable light of God’s glory shining in him. ”This light was above me because it had made me; I was below it because I was created by it.” Within our soul we find not ourselves, not even our best selves, we discover God himself who wishes us to possess the glory of the Lord and to lay hold of the promises of the Gospel. This, as both Saint Paul and Saint Augustine say, is the truth and beloved eternity.

Discovering this truth within him, creates within Saint Augustine a sighing day and night for the one who was drawing him closer to himself so that he might see him there within him.

This truth, then, burst forth in his entire being as one great cry of love: “Late have I loved you. O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside… You called, you shouted, you broke through my deafness… You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you.” This journey of spiritual transformation is not one of personal growth for the purpose of becoming a better person. It is a journey to lose oneself in the ocean of Divine Splendor who touches us and burns our hearts that they might be transformed into one great longing for God himself to the point that we gradually, and finally at last, leave ourselves and self-interests behind.

May this journey that God is right now leading you into, become your chosen path, your only desire, your greatest satisfaction! Amen.